


Nubivagant

by LostinFic



Category: A Passionate Woman (TV), Spies of Warsaw (TV)
Genre: A Walk in the Clouds AU, Christmas, F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Pregnancy Scares, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-02-22 09:32:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13164129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostinFic/pseuds/LostinFic
Summary: Based on the movie “A walk in the clouds” but on a sheep farm in the north of England, at Christmas.During the war, Betty ran away from her grandfather’s farm with a man. Now that he’s left her and she might be pregnant, Betty must go back and face the family she abandoned. When Colonel Mercier finds her crying at the train station, he offers to pose as her husband.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> CW: pregnancy scare
> 
> I've had this AU idea for a while now, and I tried to fight it because I have another fic to finish, but I ended up writing almost all of it during the Christmas weekend. I'm excited about it and I hope you will enjoy it. It's super tropey so consider it my gift to you :D

> Nubivagant: (adj.) wandering through or amongst the clouds; moving through air; from the Latin nubes (“cloud”) and vagant (“wandering”), c. 1656.

_December 22nd, 1945_

Jean-François bowed his head against the wind and hiked his duffel bag higher up his shoulder. It contained all his possessions, four years in England crammed in khaki canvas. 

The breeze kicked off his hat, he turned on his heels to catch it and collided with a young woman. Her suitcase fell open on the tarmac, and he dropped his bag and papers. “I’m so sorry, miss.”

They bent down at the same time and knocked their heads together. He caught her before she fell and she threw up on his jacket. The young woman visibly blanched, and her eyes widened in horror. “Oh, God, no, please, no.” Tears spilled from her eyes as she rubbed her handkerchief over the stain. 

“Porridge?” he asked. She didn’t laugh, she cried harder, her hands shook. “I can clean it up. Don’t worry,” he reassured her. 

“Oh, no, no, no, it can’t be.”

Her reaction seemed disproportionate given most of it had landed on the ground beside him, and he began to worry. He took her by the shoulders. “Miss Vates.” For the first time, she actually looked at him. Her doe eyes were puffy from crying, and he suspected it had begun before their collision. “I’m Jean-François Mercier, I worked with F-section.”

“I know... I didn’t think you knew me name.” 

During the war, they’d worked for the same organisation but in different offices, she as a clerk for the Poland section, and he for the French section as an operations officer. He’d seen her several times, especially in the last two months-- following the end of the war, many employees had transferred to Wanborough Manor, in Surrey, to close and file everything away permanently. They had never exchanged more than a few work-related words.

“Are you all right?” She wiped her eyes with her gloved fingers and nodded. “Are you sure?” he insisted.

“Oh bugger, me suitcase.”

He helped her pick up her stuff and his. “Are you going home too?” he asked to make conversation as he pretended not to see her underwear. The mention of home brought on a new wave of tears that all her lip biting could not hold off. 

A whistle announced the train for London. He was momentarily distracted, and she took that opportunity to escape his presence and questions. He watched her vanish into a great cloud of steam. 

Everyone in the small Surrey train station were their coworkers, going home now that the organisation had closed for good with the end of the war. He hoped miss Vates had friends amongst them. Perhaps it’s parting from them that made her so sad.

On board the train, he made a beeline for the lavatory to clean the vomit off his jacket.

When he walked out through the coach for a place to sit, he saw miss Vates again. Two young men were talking to her. “Give us a smile, eh,” said the one beside her. She turned her face away from them, but they didn’t stop.

“Be a doll, two bonnie lads like us, we fought the Nazis, I reckon we deserve a little lovin’.” He put his arm around miss Vates’ shoulders. She leaned away, elbows pressed into her sides, shoulders tense.

“I’m not interested.”

“Had a girl like that, always used to say she weren’t interested. She never meant it, did she?” His friend agreed with a roguish laugh.

“Leave the lady alone,” Mercier ordered.

“Or what?” Both boys stood up, full of the bravado characteristic of their age. Mercier didn’t engage with them. He simply stared with an air of condescending tolerance, the kind of look he might give annoying insects he could squash with his fist.

“Hey, Frenchie, we freed your country, we did. You should be thankin’ us.” 

“Yeah. We get first dib on the lassies.”

Mercier clenched his jaw, jutted out his chin and flexed his fingers. He stepped closer to them, and they stepped back, recognizing the anger of a superior officer. The train jerked, and the two boys lost balance. “Leave. Her. Alone,” Mercier repeated, walking over them. 

They walked away to find seats in another carriage. Miss Vates nodded and offered a small smile, but nothing more. Whatever was troubling her, she didn’t want company, so Mercier sat a few seats behind. 

He’d bought a book for the long journey back to France. A detective novel with a suggestive cover that should hold his interest all the way to Paris, and yet he zoned out every other paragraph. He kept crossing and uncrossing his legs, his palms were damp. Whenever his thoughts drifted to his home country, he felt a tightening in his chest, from anticipation or anxiety, he couldn’t tell. Restless, he got up to pace the central alley. Miss Vates looked up from her knitting, but averted her eyes as soon as he saw her.

*

White winter light streamed through the dirty arched glass ceiling of Victoria station, shining on the chaotic crowd of soldiers returning home and families travelling for the holidays. The chatter and laughter, the whistles and the metallic wail of trains made Betty dizzy. She hurried to catch a newly-vacated place on a bench. She took deep breaths to ward off another wave nausea. She closed her eyes and focused on the violin notes played by a busker, but his somber rendition of “I’ll be home for Christmas” brought fresh tears to her eyes.

Betty stared at the ticket in her hands: One-way, to Paris. Colonel Mercier must have dropped it when they ran into each other. She should find him and give it back to him, but she couldn’t help thinking it might be a sign. A sign that she shouldn’t go back to her family. 

She imagined starting a new life in Paris, a small flat with a view of the Eiffel tower from her kitchen window, a cat on the windowsill, the scent of warm bread wafting up from the bakery below. She would choose a new name for herself, something optimistic like Daisy or Hope. Who would know after the war? They couldn’t possibly keep track of everyone. And she imagined a little girl, playing in the living room, making her dolls speak French and English.

But it wouldn’t be like that.

She would have the same problems in Paris as she had in London: no friends, no home, no job. And maybe a baby. 

“Miss Vates.” Colonel Mercier stood before her. She noticed the stain on the tan tweed of his jacket before the steaming tea he was holding out for her.

“Thank you.” She warmed her gloved hands on the paper cup.

“If you don’t mind me saying, you look like you could use a “cuppa”— as you Brits say.” She smiled weakly and drank. “If you are sad about losing your ticket, I can fix that for you.”

“Were it that simple,” she sighed, looking at the ticket but not taking it. “I have yours too… Paris. Must be nice.”

He shrugged and sat down beside her. “Where is… Tebay?” he asked, reading the town’s name on her ticket.

“In county Cumbria, north of the Yorkshire Dales.” He nodded, but she could tell he didn’t know where any of those places were.

“And your family lives there?”

“Yeah. Me grandad, he has a farm there, and the whole family on me mam’s side, we moved there during the war. Safer, you know…” She didn’t even know if they were still there. Her mother and sister might have gone back to Leeds, her aunts and cousins too. Her grandparents would be there for sure, unless, heaven forbid, something had happened to them.

“I hope seeing your family again, on Christmas no less, will make you smile,” Colonel Mercier said, obviously trying to cheer her up. 

Betty curled her shoulders forward, her stomach rolled. She had no idea why he was being nice to her, or what he wanted from her, for that matter, but she didn’t want to burden him with her problems. “Yeah, sure… Go. You’ll miss your train. Thanks for the tea.”

He hesitated, brow furrowed in concern. “I apologize if I overstep my boundaries, miss Vates, but I cannot leave you like this… Do you need help?” 

Betty had never told anyone the whole story, kept it bottled up inside her chest, putting on a smile at work when inside she wrestled with despair, alone with her dark thoughts and pain. For the first time, she really looked at Colonel Mercier, his eyes were a beautiful clear brown in the light, and she found genuine concern in them. Her barriers crumbled. “I don’t have anywhere else to go, but he’ll kill me.”

“Kill you? Who?” He was on high alert.

“Gramps. Oh, God. I ran away and now I might be pregnant, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Through tears and sniffles, Betty told him a somewhat confusing summary of her situation.

In the September of ‘43, she’d found a man hiding in an abandoned shed on her grandfather’s farm. A Polish man named Alex Crazenovski— nicknamed Craze. “With a nickname like that you’d think I’d’ve stayed away.” Craze said he’d escaped from his country and was hiding from the Gestapo, he begged her to keep his secret. He was so charming, she never doubted his words.

All through Autumn, she visited him every day. She brought him food and clothes, anything he needed to be more comfortable. And they made love in the forest. It was the most exciting time of her life. It took her mind off her father’s death and her mother’s declining mental health, off the war and the bleak future.

But her grandfather found out. The food Betty had stolen to feed Craze was supposed to go to the government, all part of the obligatory war effort. He got in trouble with the agents of the Ministry of Agriculture for it. She would later find out Craze had also stolen from her grandfather. She begged her grandfather to give Craze a chance, but he refused and threatened to deliver him to the authorities.

“Craze asked me to run away with him. Said he knew people in London. That he’d marry me.” She shook her head at her own foolishness. She was so besotted with him, and craved more than the life she had.

Craze never did make an honest woman out of her. He wanted to wait until the end of the war and marry her in Poland with all his family. “ _They will be your family too_ ,” he’d say, implying she didn’t have one anymore.

“You haven’t spoken to your family since then?” Colonel Mercier asked, offering her his handkerchief.

“Not at first. I was too ashamed. I abandoned them, betrayed them. They needed me on the farm… The longer I waited, the more scared I was to see them again, you know. But last Christmas, I decided to be brave, and wrote them a letter…”

“And?”

“Nothing. I never received a reply. They had me address and everythin’, we didn’t move. They disowned me.”

Craze’s acquaintances in London gave Betty a job, doing all sorts of office work. Craze said he worked too, but he rarely brought money home. “I stopped asking questions, it upset him. I know that were stupid, and you must think I’m the most gullible girl in the world, but I swear when he talked to me, it all made sense. And he loved me. He did. I think. I’m pretty sure.”

They lived together for almost two years, in a small rented room, through bombings and war threats. Every time she was scared or sad or angry, he had a way of making her forget all about it. She simply couldn’t resist him.

“The war ended, and he said he was going back to Poland. That was in October. He said he had money there, that he’d come back with it, that we’d buy a house. Whilst he was gone, me boss sent me to Surrey. I sold what we had. I didn’t hear from Craze so I asked a Polish officer who knew him…” Betty let out a shaky breath. “The look in his eyes, the pity. He knew, they all knew, his friends, all along, that he had a wife.”

“In Poland?”

“In Norfolk! He left me, and he’d have left me wondering all me life what happened to him.”

“That’s awful.”

Around the same time, she started worrying she was pregnant. She missed two periods, but it had happened before. The nausea this morning, though, was another nail in the coffin.

The only friends she had in London were Polish, most of them had already left for their home country. And she didn’t want anything to do with those who had watched her be deceived without a word. Her only option was her family. Her grandfather was the kind of man who held grudges, and her mother had never made any secret she preferred her other daughter. Her sister would hate her for leaving her alone to take care of their mother. And Betty had to face them, with a baby out of wedlocks on top of it.

“I mucked up so bad.”

Colonel Mercier tentatively put an arm behind her shoulders, on the back of the bench, but she resisted crying on his shoulder. She tried to control her sobs, she was getting weird looks from people in the train station, and she’d already said too much.

“It’s his fault, not yours,” he said.

“No, I’m a stupid, gormless girl. Mam always said so.”

Colonel Mercier looked up at the ceiling, skewed his jaw, didn’t say anything. Betty didn’t disrupt his thoughts. After a long moment, he asked, “What if you were married?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “How d’you mean?”

He exposed his idea as he would a military strategy: he would accompany her to Tebay and introduce himself as her husband. That way it would seem like she had lived in London as an honest woman, and that she’d been right to trust him. He would spend the day with her family, and hopefully charm them and make them think he wasn’t the scoundrel they imagined. And the next morning, he would take off before dawn, leaving only a letter behind. “We can work out the details later. Your family will take pity on you and, the holiday season helping, welcome you back with open arms.”

“Why would you help me? Me, a ruined woman.”

“Would you believe me if I said it was the spirit of Christmas?”

“I’m not _that_ stupid.”

“No, I didn’t think so. It seems to me you are a victim—” she frowned at the word— “and I cannot stand the thought of you being hurt even more. I hate that he took advantage of your kindness. I can’t blame you for following your heart.”

“I’m not that kind of girl, Colonel! Don’t think being nice to me will get you in me knickers. I’ve learned me lesson.”

He held up his hands. “I promise I will stay out of your knickers.”

She found no trace of dishonesty in his face, but then again, experience had thought her she was a bad judge of character.

He rummaged around his duffel bag and pulled out a tiny fabric pouch. “This should help.” He tipped it over and two golden bands fell in his palms. 

“What are you doin’ carrying wedding rings around?”

“I was married. My wife passed away.”

“During the war?”

“No, before. Consumption.” 

“I can’t wear that.” He fingered the rings, hesitating. Even his pragmatic spirit wavered in front of this meaningful memento. Betty’s wariness gave way to sympathy. “What about the one on your pinkie?” He took it off, and she studied the symbol stamped in gold. “What’s it for?”

“A ring of nobility.” He seemed almost uncomfortable admitting it, but it must be important to him if he still wore it.

“You’re nobility?”

“Just a lowly chevalier.”

A knight. How perfect. She was starting to think he really did just want to help her.

“Can you do that, though? Pretend to be me husband and lie to everyone?”

“It would not be my first time. Never in this kind of situation, but I have done some undercover work.”

“You a spy?”

“Not in England!” he reassured her quickly. “But as a military attaché I was part of several covert missions. I spied on the Germans when I was in Warsaw.”

She pursed her lips, inspected his appearance. Beside the hair colour and height and maybe something in the sharpness of his nose, he looked nothing like Craze— a good thing in her opinion— he was much leaner and the way he held himself betrayed his rank. He didn’t look like someone who could get his hands dirty. Her family only saw Craze once and that was two years ago, it might just work out. Most of all, she was desperate for a solution, and having someone by her side to face her family eased her fears. 

“Okay. Be me pretend-husband.”

He slid his signet ring on her finger. She admired her hand for a moment, feeling oddly pleased.

“I barely know you, how are we ever going to look like we’re in love?” she asked.

“We have a whole train ride to figure that out, don’t we?”

*

Mercier climbed on board the red locomotive, still shocked by his own plan. 

“Me name’s Elizabeth, by the way. Everyone calls me Betty. What’s your name?”

“Jean-François.”

“Jean-François,” she repeated carefully, looking at him for approval. “I’ll need to practice.” 

As the train covered the first miles of a 285-mile northbound journey, they learned about each other, starting with the basics: age (26 and 37), family members (both had a sister, her father died at Dunkirk, and his own during the Great war), and favourite food (her grandmother’s lamb stew, and strawberry sorbet from Le Procope, Paris’ oldest café). 

They compared war stories. Although they lived on different sides of London, they’d taken refuge in the same bomb shelters and visited the same public library near Baker street. They’d both seen the latest Humphrey Bogart movie. “We went on a date. I took you dancing afterwards,” Mercier suggested.

“I wore me red dress.”

He asked her to recount her time with Craze on her grandfather’s farm, specifically the part where they were found out. Her family knew he was Polish, but, thanks to his assignment in Warsaw, Mercier could pretend to have both nationalities. For the first time in ages, he remembered Anna Szarbek, Parisian by birth but living in Poland. A transient thought, he’d made peace with the fact that Max had successfully come between them. 

Based on his work experience, he easily invented a plausible story as to how he’d ended up hiding in Yorkshire— a story in which he appeared to be a hero. “We can’t have you marry a coward,” he reasoned.

Betty shared her snack with him, her stomach too knotted for more than two bites of carrot scone.

The rest of their made-up life together was pretty much the same as what had really happened to her. Except, he had an honourable job and married her right away. They decided it was best if she waited to tell them about the pregnancy.

Together they wrote the letter he would leave behind. “Make it sound like…” Betty bit her thumb nail. “Like he loved me. Like I can be loved. I don’t want them to think it was just… physical.”

“Of course, maybe I— he thought his wife had died, in Poland, at the beginning of the war.”

“Okay, and found out she’d survived?”

“He loves you but has to go back to her,” Mercier added.

“Yeah, and you bring me back to me family, so I won’t be left alone.”

“Exactly.”

Night arrived early this time of year, and the dark pink hues of a winter sunset already filled the train car. Betty watched closely as he wrote, her chest pressed into his upper arm, her perfume wafted to his nose, something cheap and floral, too innocent for a heartbroken woman.

“Could you do that to someone?” she asked in a soft, distant voice. “If you discovered your wife was still alive.” 

“I don’t know. She passed away eight years ago, and I have not loved another woman as much since.”

“I don’t know if that’s sad or beautiful.”

She tucked her chin in her shoulder, her eyelashes cast feathery shadows on her pale cheeks. And something about the nearness of her, about her own confession, made him admit, “it’s lonely.”

“D’you think, maybe, what we’re writing is what really happened?”

Mercier doubted Crazenovski’s behaviour was anything other than self-serving, he would most likely cheat again, but Betty needed to entertain some romantic notion of him, so he conceded it could be the case.

They spent the next hours in pensive silence. Mercier rehearsed his role, so to speak. Betty dozed off, but slept fretfully. She would seem peaceful for a while, but then her lips would pinch and her forehead pucker. 

When they reached Lancaster, Betty talked to him again. “Every summer, I took this train to go to me Gramps’ farm. I always got so excited seeing these mountains, knowing I was almost there. He’d wait for me at the station and hug me tight, called me his lil’ chicken. And me grandma… I swear, I waited all year for this moment.”

“We have that in common.”

“How d’you mean?”

“My father sent me to boarding school, and I couldn’t wait to go back to our estate for the summer. Ride my horse, swim in the lake, run in the fields all day with my sister… I love living in the city now, but it was a nice respite.”

“Was?”

He inhaled sharply and spoke before releasing his breath. “It was destroyed during the war. Alsace shares a border with Germany, so…” He didn’t tell her the whole town was ran over by tanks and every villager sent to his death. He wasn’t ready to talk about it. Betty stroke his arm with a sympathetic smile.

As they stepped onto the train platform, in Tebay, Betty said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to walk to the farm”.

“Betty? Oh, my goodness, lil’ Betty Vates, as I live and breathe, it’s you!”

“Mrs. Jeffrey, hi! She’s Gramps’ neighbour,” Betty explained.

“You’re alive!” Mrs. Jeffrey cried out.

“I think so.”

“Your poor grandfather, he said you’d died in a bombing. Oh, it’s a Christmas miracle! Do you have a ride? Let me take you. Albert’s in the truck.” Mercier picked up their suitcases, and Mrs. Jeffrey noticed him for the first time. “And who’s this?”

“He’s… he’s me husband. Col— Jean-François Mercier.”

“Well done, Betty.” She winked. 

They followed Mrs. Jeffrey outside the station.

The town square clock chimed five times. A half-moon made the frost sparkle in the dark. Wisps of chimney smoke wrapped around lamp posts and, for the first time since 1940, Christmas lights twinkled in windows, unhindered by blackout curtains. 

They squeezed themselves in the back of the truck. “He’s telling people I’m dead,” Betty whispered to him. He took her hand, and she held it, a vice-like grip, the whole ride through. 

They disembarked in front of a gate, a long path between ash trees stretched to a farmhouse, its whitewashed walls bright in the night. A dog, twice the size of Mercier’s pointers with its shaggy white and grey coat, ran up to them, barking. “Hercules!” Betty sat on her hunches as it sniffed around them, tail wagging, tongue dripping.

Like a good shepherd dog rounding up its herd, Hercules pushed Betty and Mercier towards the house. Its bark announced their presence, and an old man came out, holding up a hunting rifle. “Who’s there?”

“Hello Gramps.”

“Betty!” A small woman appeared behind the man and pushed past him to embrace Betty. “Where were you, girl? We were worried sick!”

“It’s a long story, Marnie.”

The old woman looked at Mercier. “Is this…?” 

“Yes. We’re married,” Betty said.

“Oh, bloody hell,” muttered her grandfather before turning back inside the house.

“Oh, don’t mind the old grouch. I’m Mrs. Marshall, everyone calls me Marnie.”

“Betty has told me a lot about you, what a pleasure to meet you Marnie,” Mercier said, kissing the back of her knobbly hand. Betty smiled at him.

“Jolly nice to meet you, young man.” She pinched Betty’s cheek. “Didn’t he feed you properly?”

“No one has, what with rationing.”

“We managed here.”

“Oh, Marnie, I missed your food.” 

“Good, tea’s almost ready.” The women hugged each other again, both tearing up.

Inside the old farmhouse, the air was heavy with the scent of fir tree and wet wool, from the socks and union suits drying in the scullery.

The whole family gathered in the living room. Betty’s grandparents, mother, sister and brother-in-law. They stood in a half-circle, their gaze flickered between the newcomers, on the couch, and the patriarch. Mr. Marshall was a stocky man, all strength, with sunburnt skin even in winter.

Mercier was dying to say something, but followed Betty’s lead. 

Mr. Marshall finally broke the silence, “Married?!”

“I—”

“To this… this…” He shook a finger at Mercier, but with his straight back, sharp suit and perfect hair, he found nothing to say. “Who is this?” 

“Colonel Jean-François Mercier.” He stood up, his hair brushed the ceiling beams. Mr. Marshall refused to shake the proffered hand.

“A bloody French? For God’s sake.”

Now that they’d heard his verdict, the other family members spoke all over the other, asking more questions than could possibly be answered. Marnie shushed them. “Tell us what happened, Betty.” 

Betty took a deep breath and began telling the story they’d rehearsed in the train. “I sent you a letter,” she said, “but I never got a reply.”

“We didn’t receive any letter,” Margaret, her sister, said. The others all agreed vehemently. 

“So, you’re not angry with me?” Betty asked.

“Yes, we are angry with you, _Mrs. Mercier_ ,” the grandfather replied. “Me own granddaughter, getting married to a stranger. What d’you have to go to London for?”

And the barrage of questions and judgements began anew.

Betty wasn’t the best liar, and nerves made her stutter, so Mercier took over telling the rest of the story they’d made up. “My deepest apologies, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, and Mrs. Vates, for the way I behaved back then. I was scared and in danger. But I truly love your daughter.” He placed a hand on her knee, and she startled lightly at the contact.

Mr. Marshall squinted at them, his bushy grey eyebrows brushing behind the lenses of his glasses. “Umpf.”

Supper was a tense affair. And he’d been in tense situations before. A conference with England and Russia in ‘39 came to mind. But this was a whole other kind of tension. He complimented the women on the meal, but only received curt thanks in return.

Betty barely touched her plate, her hands shook whenever she picked up her utensils. He admired her valiant efforts to encourage conversation despite the hostility in the air. Two years without seeing them, they had a lot of catching up to do. He flinched every time their answers came with passive-aggressive comments on Betty’s absence and all the hard work she hadn’t had to do. He made a point to chime in with flattering anecdotes about her. “Are you sure it’s our Betty you’re talking about?” her sister asked. 

Because both he and Betty had signed the Official Secrets Act for their job, they couldn’t explain what they really did. Jean-François said he collaborated with de Gaulle which wasn’t far from the truth. Eric, the brother-in-law, who had only recently been demobed, scoffed. “You spent the war behind a desk, but I was shooting the Nazis meself, like a man.” He exposed shrapnel scars on his arm to prove his point.

Mercier clenched his jaw. This idea was proving more painful then he’d anticipated. He swallowed his pride and agreed with Eric, hopefully taking the heat off Betty. Mercier wasn’t the type to brag, but he had some go-to spying anecdotes to delight an audience when forced to, and they helped rectify his military credibility. 

The Marshalls particularly enjoyed his tale of smuggling out the entire Polish National bullion reserve before the Nazis could get their hands on it. “Forty cases of gold, ten ingots in each case, hidden under the floorboards and the seats. We’re heading for the Romanian border. Suddenly the train stops.”

“Why? What happened?” Betty asked, engrossed in his story.

“Don’t you know?” her sister said.

Mercier recovered smoothly. “I don’t think I ever told Betty that story. I couldn’t, not before the Polish got their gold back. State secret, you understand.”

“And what other secrets are you hiding from her and us?” Mr. Marshall said. He stood up from the table, moving his chair and picking up his dishes as loudly as he could.

“Never mind him, what happened next?” Eric asked.

By the end of the evening, some of the tension had dissipated. Their attitude towards Betty-- except for Marnie-- was still far from warm. He wished she’d stand up for herself more, but she looked like she believed she deserved it all. It wasn’t his place to judge.

Marnie helped by bringing out a bottle of whiskey she’d hidden before the war, keeping it for a special occasion. “Me granddaughter’s wedding, that’s special enough, I reckon.” She put on a Bing Crosby record. “C’mon young ‘uns, time for a little jitterbuggin’.” She pulled on her husband’s arm until he gave up and stood up to dance with her. Margaret and Eric, paired up too. 

Jean-François and Betty’s gazes met across the room. Well, it would seem strange if they didn’t dance. Their fingers entwined, his hand slid over her waist. Betty, who’d drank whiskey on an empty stomach, giggled nervously. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. “Our first dance,” he joked. For the first time since this morning, she smiled, a real smile, wide and bright, and there was a flutter in his chest he hadn’t felt in ages. She rested her cheek on his shoulder, and, for a moment, they didn’t have to pretend.

At the end of the night, Marnie dumped bed sheets and blankets in Betty’s arms, “You can take the blue room.” 

Mercier walked with her to the attic, carrying an oil lamp as that part of the house didn’t have electricity yet.

The blue room, they realized, had only one bed, and not a big one at that. 

“I will sleep on the floor. It’s only for one night.”

He turned his back so she could change into her nightgown. He stared at the faded blue hydrangeas on the wallpaper and at the image of the Virgin Mary above the bed. He heard Betty’s dress fall to the floor, the click of garter and bra being unhooked, the stockings brushing down her legs, and despite himself, he saw it all in his mind’s eye.

Jean-François folded his clothes beside the makeshift bed, ready to put on and sneak out as early as possible the next morning. He placed the letter on the bedside table. As he planned his exit, guilt flickered in his chest. _Craze betrayed her, not you_ , he reminded himself.

Betty lowered the flame of the lamp, and both lay in silence. Through the floorboards, came the hushed argument between Marnie and her husband. 

“Are you okay?” Mercier asked.

She sighed. “At least they didn’t kick me out. It’ll be fine, I think… Thank you again. I’m sorry they were so awful to you. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.” And then, softly, “Don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.”

He wanted to reassure her, but could he? Did she even want to see him again? Before he could reply, the stairs creaked. “Someone’s comin’ up.” Mercier jumped to his feet, kicked his blankets under the bed and slipped under the covers next to Betty. She pulled his arm around her shoulders.

Good thing he moved fast, because the door opened right after the knock, without awaiting an answer. Mr. Marshall didn’t cross the threshold and kept his hands in his pockets. He cleared his throat. “Alright?”

“Yeah, we’re fine Gramps, thanks.”

“Alright, good night, then.” He turned back as fast as he had come in, leaving the door ajar. “Don’t forget your prayers!” he shouted from the corridor.

“What was that about?” Mercier whispered.

“That was me grandma sending him. I bet she threatened to not serve her special mince pies on Christmas.”

Mercier became aware of their legs touching under the covers, of her rib cage, expanding with each breath, of her hair tickling his chin. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d shared a bed with a woman without making love to her. With his wife maybe. Melancholy pinched his heart, and he longed for that simple pleasure. She glanced shyly at him, biting her bottom lip.

“Do you think he might come back?” he asked Betty.

“Maybe… I’ll lock the door.”

“Okay. Then I suppose I should…”

“Yeah… ”

Another beat passed and they didn’t move. Their one and only night together, what if they were to make the most of it? He was confident he could make her feel better.

“Anyways.” She laughed nervously and left the bed to bolt the door. She looked at him, still in her bed. “S’not too hard, is it? The floor,” she asked.

That was his cue to return to his makeshift bed. “No. Better than a Morrison shelter, at least.”

She turned off the lamp completely and mumbled a prayer. The old bed squeaked as she tossed and turned. 

“Elizabeth? Will you be all right after I leave?”

“You don’t have to worry about me.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re curious about what the Howgills Fells/Lune Valley area looks like, check out [this beautiful album](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ministry/albums/72157664202483314) on Flickr, [this picture](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ministry/2382972856/sizes/l) in particular for the farm

_December 23rd 1945_

As soon as Betty woke up, she checked the floor beside her: no makeshift bed, no khaki duffle bag, no Frenchman. 

She supposed she ought to be happy he’d stuck to the plan. Of course, he would. A man of his word.

Betty rose slowly, expecting a bout of morning sickness. She waited but nothing happened. Still, she remained sat on the bed, staring in the middle distance with bleary eyes. 

Even if she didn’t know him from Adam, Jean-François was on her side, unquestionably, and that had given her strength. Now she was alone again. “Well, not quite.” She rubbed her stomach tenderly. She should visit the village’s midwife, but it scared her to know for sure. Right now, she could entertain either possibility depending on her mood.

As she bit her nails, something glinted on her finger: Jean-François’ signet ring. “Oh bugger, I forgot to give it back to him. I don’t even have his address.” Maybe someone in London, from their office, had it. She would send the ring, and he would reply with a thank you note, ask how she’d been, and maybe— _No_. 

Wrapping a blanket around her shoulders, she walked to the window. Plumes of frost framed the landscape. A patchwork of lands, in greens and yellows, with dry stone walls and shrubs in lieu of stitches.

The morning was grey, in the distance the Howgill Fells slept, mellow curves, covered in moorland pastures as smooth as velvet, and dusted with snow. At their feet, in the gorge, fog slithered above the river and the trees. 

Movement on the right caught her eye. Grandpa Marshall walking out of the shed with Jean-François behind him, carrying tools. Her heart skipped a beat. “What the heck?”

She found some clothes in a trunk, and hastily pulled wool socks up to her knees and slipped a wool jumper over an old floral dress, then rushed down the stairs.

Her mother, Sarah, was in the kitchen, washing the dishes at the big enamel sink. She didn’t look at Betty when she said, “Is it your French gentleman giving your airs and graces, or have you forgotten what time we wake up on this farm?”

Betty stopped dead in her tracks. “I’m sorry, I overslept. In London—”

“There’s a basket by the door, gather the eggs.”

War and the death of her husband had affected Sarah, she looked so much older than when Betty had last seen her, her shoulders hunched, grey streaked her hair and wrinkles etched worry lines on her forehead and mouth. Despite her mother’s coldness, a protective sort of affection rose in Betty’s chest. “Mam… I— I never meant to hurt you by leaving.”

Sarah finally looked at her, her silence was unbearable. At last, almost reluctantly, she opened her arms.

After two years of fear and guilt in London, after her heartache, if felt good to be held by her mother. Sarah rubbed her back in broad, soothing circles. “I missed you too. I was so worried about you. You’re lucky it worked out well. I thought he’d leave you at the first chance.”

“Why?”

“Well, you know…” And that was the thing with her mother— the thing Betty hadn’t missed— she couldn’t tell if this “you know” referred to men’s flighty nature or her daughter’s unlikeable character. 

When they stepped away from each other, her mother was misty eyed. She patted Betty’s cheek and returned to her dishes. 

Betty put on wellies and a scarf and exited the house. Being up north like this and cloudy, the temperature was cooler than London, the absence of wind kept it comfortable.

Jean-François was hard at work, sawing planks. Wood chips dusted his chic tweed trousers and olive jumper. A curly fringe fell on his forehead as he bent to hold the plank, working the saw harder. He was stronger than he looked, she realized. 

“Hello wife.”

“Is that the best pet name you can come up with?” she teased.

“Darling? Sweetheart?”

“How about ‘light of my life’ or ‘my queen’?” she joked.

He pretended to consider it, then looked her up and down. “ _Ma belle_?”

She buried her nose in her scarf to hide a blush. “Oh, em, yeah that— that will do. Why are you still here?”

“I’m sorry, but when I tried to slip out this morning, your grandfather was already in the kitchen. He asked me to help him fix the fence.”

“Oh, no. You’re stuck here another day.”

“It’s okay. I can leave tomorrow.”

“You sure?” she asked.

“Yes. It gives me more time to smooth things over.” 

“Is he any nicer to you, at least?”

“Is he ever nice to anyone?”

She smiled sadly. “He was to me. Before. I was his favourite of the grandchildren.” 

Grandpa Marshall had high hopes for her. All his daughters had married men who’d sought work in the factories, and they’d moved to the city. He worried no one would take over the farm, but then Betty had showed such a keen interest, a natural understanding of plants and animals. He had it all figured out that she would marry Donald (the son of his best friend who also owned a farm in Tebay) and he’d bequeath them his land. It was always implied that she had to marry— if not Donald, at least another farmer— to inherit the farm as if she couldn’t be more than a farmer’s wife.

Betty had gone on a few dates with Donald before he received his called-up papers. He was a nice enough boy, if a bit boring, and it might have worked out hadn’t she met Craze. She wondered if she still had a chance with him, boring might not be so bad after all.

Her grandfather pushed a wheelbarrow up the path, carrying more wood for Jean-François to saw.

“Did Homer break the fence again?” Betty asked, referring to a ram with a bad character.

“Homer’s dead. We ate him last winter,” he replied curtly. “Stop dawdling, John, we’ve more work to do.”

Betty and Jean-François exchanged a resigned look. “John?” she mouthed. He shrugged. 

A flutter of feathers and cackles welcomed her inside the coop. Some eggs had frozen overnight, the shell cracked from the yolk expanding, the others were still warm. She hadn’t eaten such fresh eggs in too long, she hoped her family would let her eat breakfast today. Her mouth watered at the thought of Marnie’s pancakes and sausages. Before leaving, she added fresh straw to keep the hens warm and cozy.

She brought the eggs back inside the house, her sister was in the kitchen now. She wore a scarf to hide her dark hair roots. “Did you check their feed?” she asked.

“Er, no.”

“Well get back there, fill the water buckets whilst you’re a it, give ‘em a good scrub before. And Marnie needs help with the laundry.”

“I’m on it.”

“I hope your husband’s not snoring, he took advantage enough of this farm last time.”

“He’s real sorry, Margie. Really.” She wondered if she could have said as much about Craze. “S’like he explained last night, he didn’t have a choice. He’s working with Gramps now. Working hard. He’s a good man, he is.” Her voice rose with passion. If only she could explain all Jean-François was putting up with just to help some girl he barely knew. 

“What kind of good man takes a daughter away from her family?” Grandpa Marshall said, walking in at that moment.

“But he brought me back.”

He grumbled something busied himself filling his pipe, Margaret averted her gaze. Betty went back outside, the least she could do right now was prove she was helpful on the farm. 

She hauled bags of food over her shoulder, fed the chickens and the rabbits, scrubbed grass stains off clothes and hung them to dry. The wind chafed her cheeks, and her fingers went numb with cold as she scrubbed the animal’s tin water buckets. Her stomach growled with hunger, but she ignored it, vigorously swiping hay with a pitchfork. Hercules, the dog, followed her around, watching with his head cocked. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m fine,” she told the dog.

“Sure, ‘cause talking to a dog is a sign of sanity,” Margaret said, walking into the barn. “That’s enough, soon you’ll be digging through the ground.” 

Betty rested her arms on the tip of the pitchfork, panting. 

“Look, I’m sorry,” Margaret said. “You’re my sister and I love you…”

“But?”

“You don’t know what it was like after you left. Gramps went to the post office twice a day, in case you’d sent a letter or a telegram. Grandma made the sign of the cross every time we heard of bombing victims. You broke their hearts. And Mam, well, she’s not doing any better and you left me alone to take care of her.”

“I know. I keep thinkin how different things would be if my letter had reached you.”

“It wouldn’t’ve changed the fact that you ran away. Why did you do that?”

“It’s complicated.”

“You keep saying that. I’m worried there’s something you’re not telling us. That _he_ made you do something.”

Betty bit her tongue, fighting, again, the urge to defend Jean-François. “I was so in love with him...” She held her sister’s gaze, willing her to understand. Margaret was no stranger to the effects of attraction. 

“Well, if you still do love him, he could use a cuppa. He’s not gonna catch a break any time soon with Gramps.” They walked out of the barn together, and Margaret added, “He’s not me type exactly, but I can see why you fell for him. Bit too posh, but nice bum.” The sisters giggled, and, for a moment, it felt like they had never been apart. 

Their laughter attracted Jean-François’ attention. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and waved at them. Warmth bloomed on Betty’s cheeks. 

_Oh goodness, get a hold of yourself._

She followed her sister’s advice, and prepared tea. She liked to put a dash of milk at the bottom of the mugs, and let them warm up on the stove, until the kettle boiled. 

She joined Jean-François outside. “You look like you could a _thé_ as you French say.”

“ _Tout à fait_.” He put down the sledgehammer, and they sat on bales of hay. 

“You don’t have to work so hard,” Betty said. “You don’t have to do anything really.”

“I’m repaying Craze’s debt.” He took a sip of tea and sighed in contentment, a little cloud on his breath. “I’m enjoying myself actually.”

“You are?”

“I spent the last four years in London thinking, analysing, planning… always in my head.” Before today, she had only ever seen him in uniform or suits, usually walking briskly down a hall or shouting at someone, always tensed, but now he looked relaxed. “It feels good to work with my body, surrounded by nature,” he concluded. 

They looked at the horizon, at the land sloping gently towards the mountains. A hare hopped across the field. In London, one can never see that far ahead without a building or black smoke blocking the view. All this space. She felt like she could draw in more oxygen. And here, no coal dust polluted the air. Every breath was cleansing.

With each rise and fall of her ribcage, her bones and muscles ached from exertion. A rewarding sort of ache, not the sore feet and neck pain of office work, but a reminder of a job well done. She would sleep well tonight. 

Beside the bleating of sheep, all was silent, and flurries drifted lazily from the sky to melt on the ground. The softest sky she had ever seen. A cashmere sky, all pale gradients of blue and pink. No sun in sight. A feeling of peace swept over her.

She leaned sideways, towards Jean-François, her body unconsciously pulled to him. She caught herself before her head touched his shoulder, and straightened her back.

“Is it a river over there?” he asked. 

“Yeah, river Lune in the Lune valley.”

“Lune?”

“It’s a Roman word, supposed to mean clean and pure.”

“ _Lune_ means moon in French. Valley of the moon.”

“That’s nice. With the fog sometimes, it looks like the sky is on the ground.”

“Heaven on earth,” he commented.

“Well, except for the smell of manure.” 

He laughed and tugged her into a one-arm hug that made her heart stutter. “Your family’s watching, _ma belle_ ,” he whispered against her hair. Of course, that’s why he’d hugged her. Marnie, Margaret and Sarah were at the kitchen window, observing them without a hint of subtlety.

She allowed herself five more seconds of hug before asking him to help her feed the sheep. 

As they neared the pen, she told him about the history of the farm, her great-grandparent and how much bigger the herd used to be before the war, she went on to talk about shearing in the spring and auctions in the square. “They love oat mixed with molasses, and— sorry, I’m babbling. Dunno why I’m telling you all that.”

“No, I think it’s interesting.”

“You don’t have to say that.”

“I know. Do they have names?”

“Yeah… Me favourite’s Violet. That’s the one over there. She’s a bit shy.” She called its name, and the ewe approached slowly. “I used to feed her apart from the others ’cause her brothers and sisters ate everything. She couldn’t make room for herself.” Through the fence, Betty scratched Violet behind the ears. “Ain’t that right, Vivi? You’re a good girl. Oh yes, you are.” Jean-François squatted down to pet its head too, and their fingers brushed together.

Betty and Jean-François grabbed pouches of feed and slipped inside the pen. She’d forgotten the strength of a herd. The females were all pregnant and in full wool, weighing over 200 pounds. The rams were even bigger. Huge balls of wet wool shoving and pushing as Betty wedged herself between them to reach the manger. Like an undertow, the animals carried Betty and Jean-François. Both were in stitches, holding each other’s hand for stability as the sheep pushed them every which way, hungry and impatient. Betty dropped the bag of grain and grasped Jean-François’ sweater. Excited by the food, a ram knocked Betty in the shins and she toppled over. Jean-François shouted her name, threw away his bag and hauled her up by the underarms. He carried her over his shoulder away from the herd.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine. I’ll have bruises, that’s all.”

“Are you sure?” He placed a hand on her belly, and she instantly pushed it away. “I’ll help you to the house,” he insisted. 

“I’m fine,” she said coldly. “I’ve fallen before, I can take care of meself.”

“I can’t leave you like this.” 

“Yes you can. That’s what you’re here for.” She ran away from him.

*

After the incident with the sheep, Betty was nowhere to be found. Mercier suspected Marnie knew something, but she kept her mouth shut. And although he knew more than one way to make someone talk, he’d rather not use them on this lovely elderly lady. 

To be honest, it upset him that Betty had dragged him all the way to Tebay, but rebuffed him when he tried to help. He thought they were getting along well, but it could be she was only being polite and didn’t like that he’d stayed one more day.

Mr. Mashall declared the work completed, and they headed back inside. Before supper, Mercier showered, shaved and dressed up, and was unsettled to find that no one else had bothered to do as much. He felt the judgement in their gazes, then a “fancy-schmancy” was mumbled. Still, he kept his jacket and tie on, it’s how he’d been brought up, proper guest etiquette. 

Betty came back just as Mrs. Vates pulled a pot out of the oven, but he couldn’t ask where she’d been in front of the whole family. 

He stood up to pull out a chair for her, she glanced at it and pretended to have to wash her hands. He followed her to the bathroom. “Can’t I pee alone?” She slammed the door in his face. When she came back, she sat away from him. He talked to her, but she barely said one word back.

For a reason Mercier had yet to understand, Eric chose politics as a discussion topic. Mr. Marshall quickly joined in, and they expressed unfounded opinions on anyone and everyone from the American president to the Japanese soldiers, not sparing French or Poles along the way. 

Betty’s agreement with some of their statements surprised him. She should know better after working closely with the Polish resistance organisation during the war. But he noticed her hands tucked under her legs, her pinched lips and tight nods. Mercier, however, had less patience with ignorance and prejudices, and, after suffering Mr. Marshall’s bad mood all day, he didn’t hold his tongue for long. He launched into a impassioned monologue about the French people’s resilience, and the courage of the Résistance. Betty stared daggers at him, but he didn’t stop arguing with the other men.

“Enough politics or there’ll be no dessert,” Marnie declared. Silence fell on the room, only the sound on cutlery on plates disturbed it.

“Guess who’s pregnant,” Margaret said. Betty gasped, and Mercier groaned inwardly. “Lil’ Suzy MacEwan.”

“Suzy? She’s married?” Marnie said.

Margaret snorted loudly. “No, she ain’t! Won’t say who the father is. Thank goodness that didn’t happen to you, Betty, eh?”

“We thought it might have,” Eric said.

“But I says to him, she’s smarter than that our Betty. Didn’t I, Eric?”

“Yeah, Margie, but you also said—”

“Shu’ up.”

Betty stood up swiftly, knocking her chair over, and stomped away. The door banged behind her, and she disappeared into the darkness. Mercier rolled his eyes at her immature reaction. How did she expect to get back in her family’s good graces? He kept eating. He’d worked all day and he was hungry.

“So,” said Marnie, “are you gonna go after your wife or not?”

Mercier put on his coat and scarf, and lighted a storm lamp. He had no idea where she could be. He roamed the property, but his heart wasn’t into it. If she wanted to sulk and act like a child, so be it. She wouldn’t want to talk to him anyway. He searched for her in every outbuilding on the large estate, calling her name.

The wind picked up, and worry crept up his spine. What if there was something wrong with her pregnancy? Or worse. He’d heard of what some women do in desperate situations. His throat constricted, his mouth went dry, with every minute that passed without finding her, he imagined worse and worse scenarios. He quickened his steps, called her name louder. She wasn’t on the farm.

Then he remembered she’d found Craze in an abandoned shed. He ran to the edge of the forest. Shouted her name. No sign of her on the west side. He crossed to the east, heart hammering in his chest. Branches whipped his face, but he didn’t care. Between two oaks, he spotted a small stone building with holes in the thatch roof and half a door. Inside, Betty paced the small space, biting her fingertips. He let out a woosh of relief. “What are you doing here?”

“Leave me alone,” she said.

“I couldn’t well leave my wife—”

“I’m not your wife.”

“No, you’ve made that abundantly clear.”

She continued pacing. The wind howled and whistled through every crack of the shed. She crossed her arms, rubbing herself for warmth. She’d left without a jacket.

He didn’t ask her to go back inside or offer his coat, for fear she might push him away. As long as he stood there, in silence, she tolerated his presence. Mercier leaned against the door and fought with several matches against gusts of air to lit a cigarette. When the fourth one went out, he cursed under his breath and gave up, knocking his head back with an impatient sigh. 

“This is where I found him,” Betty said at last. “The first time I saw him, he was curled in on himself in a corner. He hadn’t shaved in weeks. He looked like a bear hibernating…” That fond little smile annoyed him more than he cared to admit. Thankfully, it didn’t last long. She levelled his gaze, eyes full of defiance. “I don’t regret it, you know. Sure, he was a tosser in the end, and maybe he didn’t love me as much as he said he did, but he wanted me. Me. And he showed me— other things. And I went to London and I got a job, and I did it well, I did it all on me own!” Her voice broke and she looked down at her feet. Her teeth clattered from the cold. “Oh, gimme your bleedin’ coat, I know you want to do it.” He draped the trench coat over her shoulders. She tucked it under her bum and sat on the ground, arms around her knees.

She looked so vulnerable like that, his annoyance melted away. He racked his brain for something to say. “I’m certain you will be able to take care of this child, with or without your family’s support.”

She didn’t say anything, but absentmindedly twisted his ring around her finger. Through holes in the roof, snowflakes fell and twinkled in shafts of moonlight. He pulled up his collar, and his sleeves over his hands. After some hesitation, he sat down beside her, knees up too, and placed the storm lamp at their feet for warmth.

“I’m not pregnant. I went to see the midwife this afternoon. Something to do with weight loss and nerves. Says it’s been happening to a lot of women.”

“That’s a good news. You must be relieved.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

She sighed and scooted closer to him. An inch of snow had accumulated in front of the door. Cold seeped through the stitches of his jumper. She didn’t seem ready to leave, so he stayed.

“You don’t look relieved.”

“I never asked, did you have children with your wife?”

“No. We wanted to, but Annemarie’s health was too fragile.”

A gust of wind chilled his spine, and it was his turn to move closer. His bum was growing numb.

As she picked at her pilling jumper, Betty said, “I guess, since I started thinking I might be in the family way, despite everything, it made me a bit happy. I’d imagine taking care of a little bairn… Gave me some hope.”

It pained him to hear that. “Don’t you have hope anymore?”

“Maybe hope’s not the right word. I just meant it was something to be, in the future. I’d be a mother. Now I don’t know what I’ll be.”

“You could get another job?”

She scoffed. “D’you really think they’ll let women keep working now men are coming back?… I’d love that, though. Now I’ll just be the girl who ran off. The girl her husband left on Christmas Eve.”

“It does seem unnecessarily cruel.”

“Makes me more pitiful. I couldn’t keep you from Christmas with your family, anyway.”

He didn’t argue, instead scanned the forest outside. Strong gusts of wind made the trees creak ominously. His jaw ached from suppressing teeth clattering. “We should go before it gets worse.”

“It’ll pass soon,” she said. In an attempt to share the coat with him, she ended up with her arms around his waist. He slipped an arm under the coat, around her shoulders, and they held each other with some awkwardness.

“Is this okay?” he asked. “Are you warmer?”

“Yeah, warmer. Ta.” She kept glancing up at him. “I’ve told you all my problems. You can tell me what’s on your mind.”

“I told you my estate was destroyed… it wasn’t just the buildings. I don’t think I have any family left in France. Maybe some distant cousins. My sister and her husband are still in the United States. Everyone else in Boutillon is—” His throat closed around the words. He knew, from agent’s reports and newspapers, the state France was in, but seeing it with his own eyes that would be something else entirely. If he was being honest, his offer to come here with her was not entirely selfless, but an attempt to delay the inevitable. “It would not be a happy Christmas,” he summed up.

Betty shivered, so he held her closer, resting his cheek atop her head. Her hair smelled like grass and cold. Her breath warmed his chest. They should really leave this place, head back to the house, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.

“You could stay one more day,” Betty said.

“Are you sure?”

“If you want to. You wouldn’t be alone on Christmas Eve. It wouldn’t change anything to our plan. ”

“It might even make it better,” he said, although he couldn’t explain how.

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“I will need gifts for your family.”

“I have some, you can add your name.”

“I’m not sure your grandfather deserves one.” She burrowed further into his arms, and he caressed her hair.

“He’ll come around,” she whispered.

Betty slipped her frozen fingers under his sweater. The cold reached the marrow of his bones, but it seemed worse outside. When they both yawned, Betty reacted. “Oh no, we really have to move. Come.”

Through the blizzard, the house’s lights shined dimly. Holding hands, they ran, wrestled against the gale. Margaret and Eric came out of the house with big blankets to help them cross the last feet. 

They were ushered in front of the fireplace, buried under more blankets and offered mugs of steaming tea spiked with whiskey. Eric threw another log in the fire. They removed their shoes and socks to soak their feet in hot water, his skin tingled and itched as it heated up.

“Betty, you’ve got to stop running away,” Marnie chided her gently.

“Where’s Gramps?”

Marnie pressed her thin lips in a sad smile. “You have to understand, he lost his precious little girl.”

“But I’m back now. I was only gone two years.”

“But you’re not a little girl anymore.” Marnie glanced at Jean-François, and, for the first time, he sensed blame from her. His honour rebelled against it— _it was Craze, not me, I’d never_ — but he clenched his fists and kept his mouth shut.

“Your place is here,” Marnie added.

“Is it?” Betty asked. “Do you really want me here? The way I am, not the way they want me to be.”

“Yes, sweetheart, but I think we need to get to know the woman you’ve become. Listen, tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, we’ll make my special mince pies. Together, okay? I love you.” Marnie kissed Betty’s forehead and left the living room.

“There’s hope,” Mercier said, and she smiled at him.

He wished he could huddle with Betty again, but they were two separate bundles of blankets. She looked at him over her mug, something shy in her eyes, nose and cheeks still pink, and he wondered if she wished the same thing.

With Margaret, Eric and Mrs. Vates, they listened to Paul Temple, a popular private detective show on the radio. But Mercier didn’t pay attention to the plot, he thought of the first time he’d seen Betty, at the Poles’ HQ in Dorset Square, those chestnut curls and plump lips, her eagerness to help the officers. When his Polish counterparts had invited him to the pub at the end of that day, he’d accepted hoping she’d be there.

One by one, the family members went to bed, and Mercier stayed behind, watching the last glowing embers in the hearth.

“You’re still here, John,” said Mr. Marshall, and Mercier worried he was onto their subterfuge. It would explain his hostility.

“Yes. I am.” Mercier stood up, hands on his hips.

Mr. Marshall’s eyes flashed with contempt as he lit his pipe. “Don’t do that, using your height, that’s a cheap trick. Might work on me granddaughter—”

“Why can’t you be nice to her? Hate me all you want, but don’t hate her. She’s kind and strong, and I didn’t take any of that away from her.”

“But you did take something away from her.”

Was this whole quarrel about her virginity?

“Dunno what she did in London,” Mr. Marshall continued, “but she ain’t the same. She’s lying to me, I can tell. And she’s sad. You took away her joy.”

The accusation hit Mercier right in the stomach. _Not me_ , he wanted to claim again. “Well, you’re making her even sadder,” Mercier replied.

Mr. Marshall huffed, but there was a flicker of pain in his eyes. “If it wasn’t for me wife, I’d’ve chased your stinky arse all the way back to France with me rifle, I would.” He turned on his heels and left the room with a puff of pipe smoke.

To be hated by her family was all part of their strategy. He doubted staying one more day would do any good. He had better put an end to this, once he left, they would rally around Betty and bound over their hatred of the husband who left her.

When Mercier entered the bedroom, Betty was standing in front of a tiny mirror, rubbing homemade lotion on her face to soothe the effects of the cold. If she’d heard him arguing with her grandfather, she made no mention of it.

Mercier undressed and piled blankets and pillows on the floor. The sheepskins looked like clouds against the chipped blue paint of the floorboards. Valley of the moon. Heaven on earth.

“What if your grandfather comes up here again?”

“Oh, right, yeah, maybe… maybe you should lie down with me. Just for a wee bit.”

“Yes, just a little while. Just in case.”

They turned down the blankets together and lay down as far apart as the mattress allowed. Mercier’s limbs were stiff, and he was uncomfortably aware of his breathing. Aware, too, of his desire. He turned on his side, one arm under his head. She emulated him. Although he couldn’t she her face in the dark, only the vague shape of her silhouetted by the starlit window, he liked to think she was smiling at him.

“If I ever meet Craze,” he said, “may I punch him on behalf of your family?”

She giggled but a yawn stifled her laugh. “You’d make your ancestors proud,” she mumbled sleepily.

“What?”

“Knights. You’re my knight.” And that made up for all the undue blame he’d received today.

Betty fell asleep quickly. In her slumber, she shifted around, closing the gap between their bodies. Her cold toes sought the warmth of his legs. 

After some inner debating, he put an arm around her. Lightly. Resisting the urge to pull her closer. Under his hand, through the cotton nightgown, he could feel her ribs, and it made him want to feed her all the foie gras, chocolate truffles, wine and croissants she could ever want.

It was unlikely Mr. Marshall would come up the stairs tonight, and Mercier had said he would only stay in her bed for a little while. That little while was well over now. He called upon the strength of the knighthood in his blood and carefully disentangled himself from Betty to return to his place on the floor.

More than ever, he knew he had to leave the next morning. There would be no train on the 25th, and the more time he spent with her, the harder it became to walk away.

Mercier didn’t sleep, he stared at the ceiling, debating the pros and cons of leaving right now. He felt responsible for her, but it wasn’t his place to be. Every time he looked at Betty, at the soft rise and fall of her chest under the sheet, his resolve crumbled, which further proved his point that he should go before the line between pretence and reality became too muddled.

Around 4am, he stood up, as silently as possible, and put on his clothes with a heavy heart.

“You said one more day.” With her mussy hair, and her nightgown sliding off one shoulder, and those big brown eyes staring at him, Mercier knew, then, he would never refuse Elizabeth Vates anything.


	3. Chapter 3

_December 24th, 1945_

A ledge ran the length of Marnie’s kitchen, from the top of the cupboards, over the door frame to the window overlooking the backyard. As far as Betty could remember, the containers stacked on it had fascinated her: opened tin cans, glass bottles in green and milky white, ceramic jars with cork stoppers, earthenware pots glazed like the sea in winter, even old snuffboxes, and in between them, seashells, wooden thread spools, pine cones and chipped porcelain figurines, mementos gathering dust. From the ledge hung copper pots, tea-stained cups and bouquets of dried herbs tied with string. She used to imagine her grandmother was some sort of witch. As random as this assortment looked, Marnie knew exactly what each contained. She reached for a small wooden box and sprinkled its content in her boiling pot of soup without a second look. 

The scent of vegetables and broth filled the room. The same, and only, Christmas record played on a loop in the living room: “Silent Night”, “Adeste Fideles”, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, “O Holy Night”, “It came upon a Midnight Clear”. The same record every holiday season. Unconsciously following the rhythm of the songs, Betty sprinkled salt and mixed butter and flour together to make dough. 

“Remember before the war,” Margaret said as she chopped carrots, “when Daddy took us to York one Christmas.” At the time, their father had already enrolled in the British Expeditionary Forces and knew he might leave his family soon, but hadn’t told them. He had wanted to make their last Christmas together special.

“The funfair!” Betty said. “Remember the ice rink with that huge pine tree in the middle. And you fell arse over kettle!”

“Oi! You can talk, I remember how scared you were in the chair-o-plane.”

“Only at first,” Betty retorted. Vertigo had struck when her feet had first lifted off the ground and she’d tried to grab her sister’s hand. But then the exhilaration of flying had overcome fear. Her sister and grandmother recounted other souvenirs of Christmas past, but Betty kept thinking about that feeling. Her pulse quickened, and she smiled at the memory. The next best thing to falling in love.

Betty’s gaze slid to the window, seeking Jean-François’ tall, lean frame through the mist. He walked out of the barn, carrying a ladder. She’d found some old clothes for him, denim trousers and a wool jumper she’d knitted herself quite a few years ago. 

For all his distrust of the newcomer, Grandpa Marshall didn’t hesitate to ask for his help. One might say, he was abusing it even. Jean-François worked harder than anyone. 

Grandpa Marshall held the ladder as Jean-François climbed up to the barn. Some roof shingles had come loose during last night’s storm.

“He might just win your grandpa after all,” Marnie said, looking over Betty’s shoulder. “Honest, when I first saw him I didn’t think he had it in him for hard work.”

“Me neither.”

“Where are you gonna live?” Marnie asked, cleaning the sink. “England or France?”

“I— I don’t know.” Betty wiped her hands on her apron, and looked around for something to do.

“Didn’t you talk about it?” she insisted. 

“He wants to go back to France, see what it’s like first, you know, after the war.”

Marnie sighed. “Don’t tell your grandpa. You in France, Sarah, Margaret and Eric going back to Leeds like your aunts… He still blames me for giving him only daughters and granddaughters.” She left the kitchen, shaking her head and mumbling.

Betty sat at the table, a massive sturdy thing, its scratched surface a testament of its age. In the family for generations, it had seen every meal, every quarrel and celebration, even some amateur dental surgeries and a birth. 

Betty sprinkled flour on the table and rolled the dough which Margaret placed into pie pans. Her mother added the sweet apple and raisin filling, Sarah didn’t say a word, lost in her own world as she often was. 

Jean-François’ hammering echoed inside the house. Betty imagined this becoming her daily life. Cooking good, hearty meals, the kind rationing had prohibited for the past years, while her husband worked outside. They would manage the farm together, the money, the cattle, the sales. Her grandfather was more of the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” persuasion, and that had served him well, but times had changed, people and their needs too. Betty had so many ideas to improve the business. She wanted other breeds of sheep to diversify their production and merchandise. They could sell woollen garments in London, in the shops.

“I reckon it’s flat enough now,” Margaret teased. Betty had absentmindedly rolled the same piece of dough for the last five minutes.

“Sorry.”

“I can’t believe you still look at your husband like that after two years, it’s like you met yesterday.”

Betty babbled some answer. She couldn’t deny she was falling for her pretend-husband.

Jean-François had said he hadn’t loved anyone else in the eight years since his wife’s death, and here she was, fancying another man two months after Craze had left her. What would he think of her changeable heart? Of course, the circumstances were very different. And if she was honest, her feelings for Craze had dwindled many months before he left, she’d stayed with him out of necessity with a good dose of delusion. 

“We all did it,” her mother said, out of the blue.

“Did what, Mam?”

“Left home for a man. I did it for your father. Margaret did it to get away. Look where that took us. I bet you thought you was different.” Beside her, Margaret snorted, a jeering little sound.

Not so long ago, Betty would have endured, accepted even, her mother’s words. Now she didn’t know how to deal with the anger it aroused in her. She fought the urge to run away. “Maybe I wouldn’t’ve been so easily convinced to leave if you didn’t say things like that to me all the time.” Her voice quivered, and she quickly lowered her gaze, but she stayed on her chair and squeezed the dough, hard enough to tear through it.

 

The fact that it was Christmas Eve made no difference to the sheep, so on top of preparing tonight’s party they had to get on with their usual chores. In between, hanging stockings and stirring the Christmas pudding, Betty fed the animals and gathered eggs. She didn’t meet Jean-François all day and started worrying he was avoiding her. Last night she’d heard him arguing with Grandpa Marshall, saying she was kind and strong, but after she feigned sleep and moved closer to him, he left her bed. Then this morning, it looked like he was trying to sneak out even though he denied it.

At the end of the afternoon, when he headed up to their bedroom, she followed him. His duffel bag was opened on the bed, and he was placing clothes in it. Her stomach dropped, suspicions confirmed. “If you wanna go so much, you just need to say. M’not keeping you.”

“I said one more day and I’m staying, well, two more days. No train on the 25th, I suppose.”

“Yeah.” She’d known right when they’d first discussed it that no trains operated on Christmas day. “So you don’t want to go?”

“I was looking for this,” he explained, holding up a camera. “I thought my sister would like it. But perhaps your family would too. No husband would come empty-handed to meet his new family in-law for the first time.”

“A camera? You sure?”

“I can buy another one for Gabrielle. I noticed there are no recent portraits of your family on the walls. I could take some pictures later when everyone is dressed up for church.”

“Dunno how Gramps will feel about that. It’s an expensive gift.”

“Would it make him feel better if I told him I… borrowed it from MI6?”

“You didn’t!”

He shrugged with a little grin. “I had it for a mission and forgot to give it back.” He opened a flap at the front of the camera and pulled out a retractable lens. He raised it to his eye. “Smile.”

“No way! I look awful,” she replied, smoothing down her hair. The shutter clicked. “You rascal!” She ran to his side of the bed, and he jumped out of her grasp. Another click. “Stop it!” she demanded, laughing.

“Last one.” She pulled out her tongue, but he took another photo anyway. “I’m sure they will be beautiful.” 

Betty shook her head indulgently. “You’ll have to tell us how to get the photos developed, before… you know.”

Jean-François put the camera back in its leather case and sat on the bed. He smoothed his trousers unnecessarily several times. “I should be honest with you,” he said at last. “You’re right, I was trying to leave this morning.”

“Oh. I… I understand.” She turned her back to him and fiddled with objects on top of the dresser. “I mean, Gramps making you do all this work and you’ve more important things to do, I’m sure, with other people.”

“No, that’s not it. I’m worried that the longer I stay here…” Their eyes met in the mirror above the dresser. “I’m afraid it’s making things more difficult.”

“Difficult how?” she asked, joining him on the bed.

“With you family. And between us.” He relaxed his leg, and his knee touched hers. “Elizabeth, the more time I spend with you—”

Margaret burst into the room. “Come! Quick!” Betty and Jean-François ran down the stairs with her, and followed her outside. 

Eric had fallen through a hole in the upper part of the barn. He clutched his leg, screaming in pain. They cleared the wooden planks and hay that had fallen over him, and carried him to the house on a makeshift gurney. He didn’t bleed but might have broken a bone. They fussed over him as they waited for a doctor.

Betty never found out the end of Jean-François’ sentence.

After the doctor’s visit, Jean-François showed the camera to Grandpa Marshall, and they spent the afternoon photographing the homestead. The old farmer glowed with pride, planning to send these pictures to newspapers and to family members abroad.

They ate cabbage soup for supper, leaving room in their stomachs for treats later on. As the women did their hair and make-up in preparation for Mass, the men shaved and took out suits they only wore once a year. Presents appeared under the tree, and carollers sang on the streets. Neighbours and friends came by with homemade gifts. The excitement in the air was tangible. Betty felt like a kid again. She and Margaret, ran around with curlers in their hair, laughing at the smallest things as they searched for something to wear in lieu of lipstick. “I can’t wait until we have mascara again and proper stockings,” Margaret sighed. 

“Me too,” Betty replied, but she wasn’t really listening, instead examining her appearance in the mirror. “I can’t wear this.”

“You have to, we need to leave soon and Gramps wants a nice photo of us all before.”

Betty searched every closet in the house and found a green dress with a tulle skirt. Still struggling with the back zipper, she joined her family in the living room. “Can someone help me with this?” Her heart skipped a beat when she felt Jean-François behind her, his hands rested on the small of her back. He jiggled the stuck zipper and leaned in to get a closer look. His breath tickled the skin between her shoulder blades. He had to reach inside the back of the dress to fix the zipper, and when it finally moved, his fingers slid slowly up her spine with it. He swept her hair aside so it wouldn’t get caught in the metallic teeth, and his touch lingered on the nape of her neck as he closed the button at the top of her dress. 

“All done,” he said, hands still on her.

“Thank you.”

Marnie’s giggles effectively ended their moment. “Look up,” the old woman said. As the whole family stared, Betty realized they were standing right under a branch of mistletoe.

“Come to think of it, we’ve never seen you two kiss,” Grandpa Marshall said.

Betty and Jean-François exchanged a look. Heat flooded her cheeks, and she covered her mouth with her fingertips. 

“What do you say, _ma belle_?”

This was her only chance to kiss him, but she tried for nonchalance. She shrugged. “Tt’s tradition.”

“For the sake of tradition,” he agreed, cupping her cheek. Betty wet her lips, her heart pounded in her chest.

“What’s going on here?” 

Betty startled, recognizing the voice. Two men came in, Donald and his father, Grandpa Marshall’s best friend. Salutations and cheers followed their entrance.

“Who is this?” Jean-François asked in a low voice, still toe to toe with her.

“He’s the man I’d’ve married if I’d stayed.”

“I see. Perhaps it can still happen for you.” 

He walked away, but Betty grabbed his arm and pulled him back to her. She lost her nerves, and Jean-François looked at her with eyes full of questions.

“I don’t want him,” she said.

His hand returned to her cheek, and she grabbed his tie. The smallest smile graced his lips before he gently pressed them to hers. They kept the kiss chaste because of their audience, it still left Betty weak in the knees. 

“Do you think we have convinced your family?” he asked, his mouth just an inch from hers.

“Not sure yet.”

He chuckled and kissed her again.

“Alright, enough of this,” Grandpa Marshall said, pushing them apart. “We’ve a picture to take.”

The whole family gathered in front of the Christmas tree, Jean-François adjusting their positions to fit in the frame. 

“Jean, come here, with us,” Marnie said, Grandpa Marshall grumbled but she shushed him, “let Donald take the picture.”

*

The whole village, hundreds of people, gathered on the parvis of St. James church. Men smoked while women talked, and children chased each other overexcited to be up so late. The night was alive with lights and laughter that eclipsed the stars.

At the bottom of the stairs leading up to the tall doors, Betty slowed down. “D’you think he knows we’re not really married?” she whispered to Jean-François.

“Who?”

“God,” she replied as if it was the most obvious thing. 

“Do you not want to go inside?”

She gave this some thought. “That’s probably worse, innit?”

“We’re not doing anything an unmarried couple should not do.” Satisfied with his answer, Betty took his arm and they walked up the stairs. 

Marnie told him the railway company had built the church for its employees in the 1880s. The interior design reminded parishioners of that fact: red and yellow brick walls, pews like benches in the station waiting room and a font cover shaped like a railway engine wheel. 

The real centre of attention that night was the choir of boys and men, in white robes, each holding a candle, the only light in the church. Their voices was but a hum above the chatter.

With every person they met, Betty had to explain she wasn’t, in fact, dead as her grandfather had told everyone. She seemed relieved when the service began. 

Mercier wasn’t the most religious man, but he took some comfort in the thought that something as horrible as the war they’d lived through had a larger meaning. That his survival and the death of his friend were not random. This Christmas, more than any other one, invited to contemplate life and death and one’s place in it all. As the reverend spoke, he saw it in the faces of everyone around him: the frowns and the knitted brows, the teary eyes and white knuckles. Gratitude and grief, sadness and relief. 

He reached for Betty’s hand, and wondered when doing that had become so natural. 

The Marshalls were generous people, after mass, they opened their door to everyone. The house filled with friends and music: violin, guitar, accordion and bagpipes. The living room became a dance floor and the windows fogged. He took off his tie and jacket. There were flapjacks and hot cider, and Betty’s arms around his waist. She introduced him as her husband to anyone who asked. They called her Mrs. Mercier. And he played along. They both did. Perhaps a little too much. He hoped these people would never compare the stories they told them or they would find some serious discrepancies. The story of their wedding, in particular, they embellished with every repeat. What started as a “short civil ceremony”, by the fifth time had become “a gorgeous ceremony at St Paul’s cathedral, with the French National Orchestra playing as I walked down the aisle. Jean-François had just helped them escape the Nazis, you see.” A good undercover agent would never do such a thing, but it made Betty smile so he didn’t care.

When old neighbours told him embarrassing stories about Betty’s youth, he noticed she hid her face against his arm, so he encouraged them to continue. More than once, young Betty had gotten in trouble when trying to help. “Oh, you must have been, six or seven, when you fell off our apple tree,” a woman remembered.

“Said she was trying to return baby birds to their nest,” a man added.

“I still got a scar,” Betty said, pointing a faint line on her arm. 

He touched it carefully, and hated Craze for abusing her big heart. 

“You have scars too, don’t you?” 

“A few. Here.” He unbuttoned the top of his shirt and pulled the lapel away to expose his collar bone. Her fingers danced along it, slipping under the shirt to touch the spot of raised, pinker skin. He could smell the cinnamon on her breath, and he wanted to kiss her again. 

She dropped her hand and gaze. “Want something to drink?”

“Yes, whatever you can find.” She walked away so quickly she bumped into her aunt. 

Mercier ran his hands down his cheeks with a groan. He had to pull himself together, he was here to help Betty not make things harder for her. Despite that good intention, when she came back and found her seat taken, he patted his knee in invitation.

“You sure?”

“You would not be the only one.” Around the room, three other women sat on their husband’s lap. “If you don’t want—”

“No, no, that’s okay. That’s the normal thing to do.” She sat sideways of his knees, keeping most her weight on her own legs. He wanted to pull her closer, feel her full weight on him. He drank instead. The Jubilee Stout she’d brought him tasted of roasted grains and licorice, and made him long for a full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon or a fine Cognac. 

Betty discussed with Mrs. Jeffrey, the woman they’d met at the train station on their arrival. As Betty talked, she relaxed further against him, and he drank some more to keep his hands off her. “So, I never got the full story of how you two met,” Mrs. Jeffrey said.

Mercier began to tell the story he’d prepared. “I was chasing after German spies who’d tried to pass off as French refugees.”

“Goodness gracious, German spies? Here?”

“Yes. They lured me into a trap, and when I escaped I had to hide. I found a place in the woods, behind the farm.”

“When I found him… I needed help,” Betty said, and Mercier frowned at her deviation from the story they’d agreed on, but she continued. “I’d hurt meself. In the forest. I’d slipped on the rocks, in the river, you know the place.”

“Beside the old bridge, yeah? Our Johnny fell there too, nearly drowned, he did.”

“Yeah, that’s the place. Well, you see, Jean-François he didn’t have to help me, could’ve ignored me, kept hiding, but he didn’t. He rescued me.” She cupped his cheek tenderly, and, never breaking eye-contact, he placed a lingering kiss on her palm.

“And you helped me too, to recover from my injuries,” he said. “I knew I had to go back to London. Duty called, but I didn’t want to go. The more time I spent with her, the harder it became to leave. So I asked her to marry me. I would have waited,” he added, also going off script. “If she’d wanted to stay with her family. I would have understood.”

Mrs. Jeffrey dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. “You two are so sweet, I wish you a lifetime of happiness.” She pinched their cheeks and left.

Betty sunk against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Are you tired, _ma belle_?”

“A bit, yeah. It’s past two am.”

They fell silent, observing the people around them, some celebrating, some snoring. They didn’t interest him as much as Betty, her warmth through his clothes, the faint scent of soap on her skin, the tiniest of freckles on her nose. Desire pooled low in his stomach.

“Jean-François.” She had a hand on his, not just resting there but pushing it away lightly, and he realized he’d ventured quite high up her skirt. 

“My apologies, I— I think I need some fresh air.”

Mercier welcomed the night air and its cooling effect on his ardour. He rounded the corner of the house and lit a cigarette, taking a long drag. “ _Merde_.” 

He kept thinking of Olga, A.K.A. the countess, “ _am I overplaying my part?_ ” she’d asked on their last meeting before she was killed.

Laughter and songs came through the window. Every person Betty had introduced him to as her husband she would have to tell he’d left her. The lie had gotten out of proportion and would make life harder for her rather than easier. This was why he should have left earlier.

The back door opened, he heard voices but didn’t see them from his side of the wall. “What’s the deal with Betty and that husband out of nowhere. Thought you was gonna marry her, Donald.”

“I was. Dunno what she’s thinking, takin’ up with a stranger. This land could’ve been mine. Now it’ll go to some French knobhead. She’ll never fit here with a man like that.”

*

The last guests left past 3am, and Betty searched around the house for Jean-François. She hadn’t seen him in the last hour. Not since she’d stopped his wandering hand, she hadn’t minded it, it just wasn’t the right moment or place for that. She hoped he wasn’t upset. She asked Marnie and Margaret, but they hadn’t seen him either. He wasn’t in the bedroom nor the washroom. 

Finally, she found Jean-François asleep in an armchair in the closed summer kitchen. He looked too peaceful to wake him up, besides he’d have to get up in just a few hours for farm work. It was cold, so she covered him with an afghan blanket and brushed stray hair off his forehead. She laughed softly at his gaping mouth. 

The old floorboards creaked, and Grandpa Marshall sidled up to her. Thumbs hooked under his braces, he considered Jean-François then his granddaughter. “Does he make you happy?”

“Jean-François— yes.” 

“You sure? You don’t look it, not always. What happened, Betty?”

“It’s war, Gramps. Death and… and deceit. I can’t be the innocent girl I was before and that’s alright.”

“Well, war was easier to live through here. We was safe.”

Betty sighed and walked away, picking up empty bottles and glasses as she went. Her grandfather followed her to the kitchen. Of course, he had to pick a moment when she was sleepy and he’d drank to talk. She wiped her hands on a tea towels. “Dunno what to tell you, Gramps. I know I let you down. I can’t explain why I did what I did. Not entirely… Will you ever forgive me or d’you want me to leave?”

He sat down at the table, groaning at the ache in his joints. “To be fair, I knew it was coming,” he said.

“How d’you mean?”

“You don’t say much, luv, never have, but that don’t mean there’s nothing going on in that nugging of yours. With you father’s death, and you mother’s… You needed something else.”

“I do love the farm so very much, though.”

“I know. I know. Just tell me you found what you was looking for.”

“A bit, yeah. I know a thing or two about meself I didn’t know before.”

“And you found him.”

“I’ve still got a lot to think about.”

“Dunno thinking so much will do you any good, but you do what you gotta do.” He stood up and placed his hands on her shoulders. “You can stay here as long as you need too.”

“Yeah?”

“Come here, my lil’ chicken.” He gave her a hug, and for a brief moment, she felt like the happy child she had once been. 

Grandpa Marshall went to bed, and Betty looked out the window with an unburdened heart.

“You would have let me sleep in that chair all night?” Jean-François asked, he held the afghan around his shoulders which made him look like a tall child.

“Didn’t want to wake you. You coming to bed, then?” They walked sluggishly up the stairs together. Jean-François collapsed on the mattress. 

“Your family certainly knows how to throw a party.”

“You had a good time? Did it take your mind off your family?”

“Yes… Of course, now I’m thinking about them.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry!”

“I’m joking.” He crossed his arms under his head, stretching his torso in a way that pulled his shirt out of his trousers, and her eyes lingered on that sliver of skin. “Betty?”

Her head snapped up. “What?”

“Do you need help with your dress again?”

She didn’t. “Yes, please.” She sat on the edge of the bed, and he rose to his knees. She let him brush her hair aside.

“I think I heard you reconcile with your grandfather,” he said, opening the top button.

“Yeah, I think we’re on the right track.”

“I’m happy for you.”

He pulled the zipper all the way down, knuckle dragging down her spine as he did it. She stayed on the edge of the bed, dress sliding down her arms. 

“D’you think I should tell them the truth?” she asked, looking at him over her shoulder. 

He’d laid back down already, eyelids drooping with sleep, but he made an effort and propped himself up on an elbow.

“Why do you want to tell them? Don’t do it for me.”

“No, I mean, I do hate that they don’t know what you’re doing for me, but I’ve just realized I’m gonna have to lie to them about it all me life.”

“I shouldn’t have made you lie to them.”

“You did the right thing. Not sure I’d’ve taken that train without you.” She squeezed his hand. “I just feel I should be honest.” She sighed, too sleepy to consider the matter further. 

“That’s very noble of you.”

She admired his ring on her finger. “Yeah, I reckon I should be knighted too.”

Jean-François chuckled and pulled on her hand so that she fell on the bed beside him. “I dub thee: _chevalière de la_ Lune.” He patted both her shoulders then booped her nose. 

They rested their heads on pillows, blinking slowly, smiling at each other. They should change out of their clothes before falling asleep, but she didn’t have the energy to stand up.

“Can you hold me? Just for a little while?” Betty asked.

“Sure.” He opened his arms, and she snuggled up to him. His hands rested on her back where her dress gaped. 

“Happy Christmas,” she whispered. She pecked his cheek but he turned his head at the same moment and their lips met. They froze until Jean-François moved his lips, and she returned the kiss. A gentle kiss, sleepy and unhurried. Afterwards, she kept her eyes closed for a second, savouring the tingles on her lips. 

Betty rested her head on his chest, and they fell asleep in their fancy clothes.

*

Sunlight danced behind her eyelids, shifting yellows and whites, compelling her to wake up. Although she resisted the pull of the morning, she became more aware of her surroundings, of the soft rise and fall under her cheek, of a heartbeat where he ear rested, of an arm over her. She smiled and pressed her nose to the soft cotton of his shirt. And she thought there would be no more war if everyone had such lovely mornings. The thought made a giggle bubble her throat and her stomach vibrated with it against Jean-François. He inhaled deeply and tightened his arms around her. “What’s so funny?” he mumbled.

“Nothing.”

Unpleasant sensations eventually caught up with her: full bladder, pasty mouth, pins and needles in her arm. He protested when she moved, but eventually let her go. She tiptoed to the washroom so as not to get caught by her family, she had every intention of going back to bed. She rinsed her mouth and freshened up with a flannel. The floor was cold under her bare feet and she rushed back to the room to dive under the covers. Jean-François was still in bed, but she thought she could smell mint about him. 

They lay face to face, and she removed one of her hair from his shirt as an excuse to touch him. 

“I could kill for a good cup of coffee,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Too much to drink?” She rubbed his forehead to alleviate the headache. He leaned into her touch until his head rested on her pillow. She ran her fingers through his hair, and his eyes fluttered shut.

“I only had two beers, but I didn’t get a lot of sleep. And I love coffee.”

“You can have a coffee tomorrow. You’ll be in France.”

His eyes opened, he searched her face, his brow furrowed. She shied away from that inquisitive gaze, tucking her head under his chin. He smoothed strands of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingered on her jaw. “I want you to come with me to France.” 

She stilled. She couldn’t have heard him right. 

“Please say something.”

She looked up at him, and she found in his eyes the same sincerity and concern that had touched her at the train station. “You really mean it.”

“Yes… I think I could use someone with me. And you are so very lovely to be with.” Betty smiled wide behind her fingers. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes! I mean, it’s only polite I return the favour.”

“This is not about politeness.”

Betty’s heart swelled in her chest, pushing laughter up her throat. She couldn’t stop smiling. 

“May I kiss you again?” he asked. 

“Oh, please do.”

From the way he wet his lips and looked at her, she knew this kiss would be different. A spark flared in her stomach. He brushed his nose down the slope of hers, and the first press of his lips was a featherlight caress. Without the pretence of mistletoe and her family watching, he took his time, building up the kiss. With each touch, the spark in her grew. Her mouth parted on a sigh, and he sucked on her bottom lip. Their legs entwined and fingers tangled in hair. He deepened the kiss, claiming her mouth, letting his hunger take over. And she welcomed it. He held her so tight, this fingertips reached her ribs.

In the last months, with sadness and anger plaguing her heart, intimacy had been far from her mind. But now, her body awoken from its hibernation, desire returned to her cells, and her pulse thumped between her legs. She canted her hips, pressing against him. The kiss turned messier. Wet smacks and panting breaths filled the room. She clawed at his shirt as if to rip it off him. A groan rewarded her ardour. 

Jean-François pulled away suddenly. His eyes were wide, his lips kiss-swollen.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’m finding it hard to keep my promise to stay out of your knickers.”

“Oh, sod that promise.” She tugged on his collar to bring him back to her, and he laughed against her lips.

Jean-François pulled her dress down to her waist, his mouth following the fabric, pecking down her neck, across her collarbones, licking at the lacy edge of her bra. She removed it as fast as she could, and he kissed the red indentations left from sleeping with the bra on, a tender touch on each side of her breast then to the soft undersides, until her nipples were hard enough to graze his teeth over them. 

Betty arched into his touch, trapping his leg between hers, squirming with a delicious sort of restlessness. 

His hand sneaked under the layers of tulle, caressing her thighs and dragging his nails in a way that turned her skin to gooseflesh. She spread her legs without a moment of hesitation. He cupped her sex over her underwear and she bucked into his hand. 

“Betty?”

“Keep going.”

His fingers slipped under the fabric, and he quirked an eyebrow at her readiness. He removed his hand from under her skirt, showed her his glistening fingers. 

“I like you,” she said shyly. 

He gave his beautiful fingers a lick. “You like me a lot.”

She hid her face in the crook of his neck and he kissed her hair. “It’s okay, _ma belle_.”

His light strokes of her folds became bolder, and she soon forgot her embarrassment. “Like this, please.” She guided his touch to a spot that made her gasp. 

He moved faster, and she fisted the sheet. “Oh, God.” He studied her, the way she bit her bottom lip and squeezed her eyes shut, learning what elicited shivers and gasps. 

“Look at me.” She opened her eyes, and he added a finger with a twist of his wrist that made her cry out. She put her hand behind his neck, bringing his forehead to hers. Their breaths mingled as her body went taut. And he swallowed her moans of release.

Betty fell against the pillow, every muscle felt like jelly. “Thank you.” 

He chuckled at that and lay beside her,tracing lazy patterns on her stomach and chest. He was still completely dressed but his hair was a beautiful mess. 

“I haven’t forgotten you,” she said, “I just need a minute.”

“I will be right here when you’re ready.”

“I bet you will.” She kicked off her dress and knickers. “Can I... be on top?”

“Hop on.”

"I can't believe you said that." She chuckled as she straddled him.

She began with his wrinkled shirt, exposing his chest. Licking her lips, she caressed his flat stomach, the shelf of his ribs, the sparse hair on his pectorals. She was already rolling her hips where he bulged, and took some perverse pleasure in soaking his chic trousers. She inched lower down his legs and unbuckled his belt slowly, then dragged the zip down even slower. His groan of impatience was delicious, she stroked him through the cloth, enjoying the way he hardened under her palm. 

“I didn’t know you were such a tease,” he said.

“It’s not teasing if I see it through, though.” She flashed a mischievous grin.

He pulled her in for a kiss, nipping at her bottom lip. She rubbed her nose along the stubble on his jaw, smelling his skin, faint traces of woodsy cologne and his natural musk. He gripped her hips, tried to tug her down on him, but she resisted. 

“Just wait a minute, you’ll love this, I promise,” she said, and started to kiss down his body. 

Her hot breath, inches from his pants made him twitch and hit her chin. 

“You deserve a reward, don’t you think?”

“You don’t have to…”

“I want to.” And she found she really meant it. She wasn’t trying to please him beyond her own comfort zone, she was being honest. He already knew everything about her and had never once judged her, she doubted this, of all things, would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

Betty kissed his hip, and he caressed her hair, and oddly chaste gesture given what she was about to do.

She pulled down his pants, just enough to release his cock and lick the length of it. He raised himself up on his elbows to watch her. His eyes were dark, his mouth agape, holding his breath until the next touch. She revelled in that look, this beautiful man who desired her. 

She gathered saliva in her mouth and kissed his tip, she let him push up past her lips. His stomach flexed with each panting breath. She sucked on the head, and he cursed in French. She released him returning to teasing licks. 

“Are you enjoying torturing me?” he asked. 

“Immensely.” 

“I’ll get back at you for this. There are so many things I want to do to you.”

“Tell me,” she asked, returning her mouth to his cock. He sucked in a breath and tried to focus on describing all the places where he wanted to make love to her, starting with the train to Paris. His voice was lower, rougher than usual, his French accent thickened. She could feel herself swelling and slickening, the throb of her own arousal as she imagined it with him.

She bobbed her head faster. He’d stopped talking now. Her free hand rested on his thigh, and he laced their fingers together. When his grip tightened, she stopped. “You can finish like this,” she said, “or we can continue.”

“Continue.”

She straddled him again. He didn’t penetrate her, but let her glide up and down his cock, coating it in her wetness. She caressed her breasts and rolled her hips languorously. He swallowed hard, and she watched the muscles in his neck work. It aroused her as much as the friction between her legs. When he rubbed his thumb over her clit, her rhythm faltered. She braced herself on his shoulders, grinding faster. The old bed squeaked and rattled. He licked the sweat up her neck and kissed just below her ear. 

“Jean-François, I need…”

“What do you need?”

“I need you, in me.” 

He rolled over her. He cupped her cheek and looked into her eyes in a way that made a lump rise in her throat. 

She wrapped her legs and arms around him, holding his as close as possible as he slowly pushed in her. They moaned in unison, and he stilled, filling her. He throbbed and swelled in her. His breath was ragged, his teeth were at her shoulder. She needed him to move but she treasured this closeness, this unity. She kissed him, pouring her heart and soul into it. 

When they parted, there was marvel in his eyes. He rested his forehead on hers and started moving, careful, sensuous rolls of his hips meant to make her feel every inch of him. And they lost themselves into each other.

*

When they finally left the bedroom, the table was already decked with the best china and Christmas crackers for lunch. The pudding steamed in the copper boiler used to heat water for washing, turning the kitchen into a sauna.

“About time,” Marnie said. “Help me with the mutton, will ya.”

“Sorry, we overslept.”

“Didn’t sound like sleeping,” Margaret muttered.

Betty joined her grandmother at the counter, even the men helped prepare the meal. 

As they sat around the table, paper crowns on and laughing at Grandpa Marshall’s stories, Betty’s eyes drifted to the window, to the Howgill Fells awash with sunlight and the sheep grazing peacefully. It felt familiar and new at the same time. She would return here, of that she was sure. Under the table, Jean-François laced their fingers. Whatever 1946 had in store for them, they wouldn’t go through it alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this story. Stay tuned for more Jean-François and Betty in 2018 :D


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